The major purpose of automobiles is to provide a means of transportation. After the basic purpose of transportation is achieved, its safety becomes the issue to be addressed. Safety can be categorized into active safety and passive safety. Auto lamps are the first line of defense for active safety. They are extremely important for night driving. They mainly provide sufficient illumination for drivers to know the road conditions, and thereby increasing the safety of night driving. Accordingly, people generally make much of auto lamps.
In addition, auto lamps occupy a significant portion of the output value of domestic automobile components. Traditional headlamps are difficult to comply with current international regulations, and hence are gradually replaced by novel ones. Novel headlamp optical systems are developed, such as multi-reflector (MR) headlamps, free-form reflector (FR) headlamps, poly-ellipsoid-system (PES) headlamps, and high intensity discharge (HID) headlamps.
Furthermore, the influence of auto lamps on opposite lanes is respected increasingly in recent years. Owing to the maturity of HID headlamps, more drivers replace their original lamps with HID headlamps without any adjustment and modification. Hence, their lighting pattern does not comply with the regulations, and may affect vehicles in the opposite direction due to scattering or glare. Taking Taiwan for example, from 2007, those cars with HID headlamps that are not installed by the original car manufacturers has to be re-examined for their distribution pattern of light in the Motor Vehicle Supervision Offices. The passed cars will be marked with HID headlamps in their car permit. It is thus clear that in addition to illuminating the roads for drivers, a good design for auto lamps also has to consider the safety and comfort of other people on the roads. According to the traffic division of Taipei, relatively high percentage (19%) of the reasons of traffic accidents in 2008 are due to inattention of conditions in front of the cars. Besides, according to the public security department of China, the traffic accidents in 2005 are mainly occurred between 2 pm to 10 pm, occupying 45.4% of traffic accidents.
It is evident that traffic accidents tend to occur under the conditions of insufficient light around the roads or failing to beware of changes in road conditions. Accordingly, in addition to relying on the original illuminating equipment on roads, the lighting system on cars also plays an important role. Recently, there are many discussions and news regarding to HID headlamps installed on cars and relevant examination regulations. Many of them are related to modifying the lamps without authorization. The modified lamps might have lighting pattern not complying with the regulations, and hence affecting the opposite lanes. Thereby, the present invention adopts the light source of the next-generation, the light-emitting diodes, with novel optical designs for providing auto lamps that can comply with the regulations.